


Mockingbird Vs. The Doom Wolves

by MsMockingbird



Series: The Mockingverse [6]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Mockingbird (Marvel) - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Animal Death, Blindness, F/M, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 11:54:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3446234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsMockingbird/pseuds/MsMockingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mockingbird crash lands in Latveria, she runs afoul of Victor Von Doom, who always keeps his word.</p><p>Exactly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crash Boom Bang

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the first year of Hawkeye and Mockingbird's marriage, after the conference depicted in Chapter 6 of "Intemperate and Savage, the Hawk Remembers" http://archiveofourown.org/works/3234947/chapters/7045766

Bobbi woke up dangling head down from the harness of her parachute, tangled in some sort of pine tree. Looking up she could see a column of black smoke rising above the tree line; the remnants of the light plane she'd deliberately crashed into the mountains. It was a toss up what had happened first, the bomb going off or the impact into the rocks.

It took longer than it should have for her to get down from the tree; her head felt tight and throbbed horribly and her left shoulder was out again. Once she was down she had to snap it back into place--normally Clint's job. It seemed to hurt more without his hands on her but she could have been flayed alive and not noticed when he was touching her.

Had she...was the beacon on? Could she expect rescue? 

She'd gotten out a last message, so at least the Avengers would know she had a parachute and jumped. They'd know she'd gotten the 'dirty' part of the bomb disarmed, so Stark could send a drone to recover the nuclear material.

But she'd left most of her gear back at the conference. She had her second best batons, the slightly inadequate set of casual clothes she'd been wearing to check into the hotel and--that was about it.  
Great.

She had to sit down for a while against one of the trees and try not to throw up for sometime, then gave up and vomited. 

She couldn't stay here. The border between Hungary and Latveria was erratic in this chunk of the mountain range; she'd crashed the plane on the Hungarian side but she couldn't be sure where the wind had blown her. Also, it was cold, she was wet with condensation and sweat, she had no food or water and she'd had to fight her way through a couple dozen minions to get the plane in the first place.

"Now would be a good time to swoop in and rescue the princess, Hawkeye," she muttered under her breath as she picked her way carefully down slope through the trees, stumbling and squinting with the pain in her head.

She looked up. No friendly repulsor whine. No quinjet, no flying blond men with big hammers, no Falcon with his exosuit. She was on her own.

Near the bottom of the hill, she found a cart track through the woods and arbitrarily went left, since Hawkeye was left-handed. 

After about an hour, she was thinking she should have gone right and then saw what was clearly a small town on the crest of the next hill. The sky was darkening in that direction so it must be east she was heading in. She couldn't remember if that was good or bad now. 

It looked like a typical Eastern European town, all stone and brick and dark wood. Hopefully someone there spoke English.

People spotted her pretty quickly and looking back over her shoulder she could still see the plume of smoke rising from the sky. The whole town was probably on high alert. They were gesturing and pointing at her and shouting in some liquid voluble language that sounded Hungarian to her.

Thank Odin.

She waved and continued forward, hoping a single limping, singed blond woman wouldn't look threatening to anyone. As she staggered into the town square, a lump was forming in her stomach. Something was just...off.

An older woman with a harried...no...panicked expression advanced across the open square towards her, waving frantically. 

Bobbi stopped in the middle of the space and held up her hand. "Do you understand English?"

The woman nodded 'yes'.

"I'm in Latveria, aren't I?"

Nod.

"There's a Doombot behind me, isn't there?"

Nod.

Without gathering herself or perceptibly tensing any muscles, Bobbi pushed off her left foot and dove for the nearest space between two buildings. The Doombot's shot--some sort of energy weapon--almost grazed her shoulder. The townspeople were screaming and scattering; Bobbi just ran like the hunted thing she was. Another shot lanced down the tight space behind her but she was already jumping, pushing off each stone wall to climb in jumps to the thatched roof of the right side building. She tumbled onto the scratchy material and rolled to her knees, retching helplessly for a long moment. The sudden burst of adrenaline and blood sugar and sheer will needed to react that quickly and suddenly was draining when she was fully healthy. Her head hurt so much she was seeing black over at least thirty percent of her vision.

An electronic approximation of Von Doom's fruity, teeth-hurtingly superior voice drifted up from the street below.

 _Bzzt._ "Surrender yourself, Avenger."

Bobbi pressed down on the roof until she was sure she had a solid base. "That's it? Not even pretend negotiation?" 

Then she leapt sideways, onto the other slope, because of course the Doombot had only spoken to try and get her to reveal her exact position, which it then shot at. Bobbi hit the slick surface and would have been able to get to her feet under normal conditions; today a savage stab of pain lanced through her temple and she found herself slipping and shortly after that falling.

Onto a pile of clean hay, thankfully. But when the red and black cleared, the Doombot was standing over her, the muzzle of an integrated arm-gun pointed at her face. Its eyes were glowing a sickly green--that would be Von Doom remotely looking down on her from the copy of his own mask.

Bobbi sat up and clutched her head. "Oh for fuck's sake, are we going to do this? What happens now, you march me into the square to make an example of me to a bunch of terrified serfs?"

 _Bzzt._ "There is no need for vulgarity."

"After the day I've had, I'll be as fucking vulgar as I fucking like, Victor."

Whatever answer she'd been expecting was not the one she got: the Doombot shot her in the face.

*****

Bobbi woke up feeling cold. The ache in her head had receded a little but it had been replaced by stabs of pain up and down each arm from her shoulders. 

And that was because she was manacled and chained to a stone wall in a genuine castle. A genuine dark, dank, brooding ceilings thirty feet up must be haunted castle.

She squinted into the gloom. There was a single flickering light source to her right--a torch, seriously? A torch in holder? In the dim light she could make out a large table and what looked liked a tapestry flanked by paintings on a far wall.

"Greetings, Mockingbird." Doom's voice boomed through the air, coming from every side. She suspected she was supposed to start or shriek or panic in some manner. Instead she smiled and leaned her head against the hard stone.

"Yo, Vickie. How's the dictatorship business treating you?"

She suspected she wasn't supposed to hear his irritated sigh but he was somewhere to her left in the darkness. Overhead lights came up and the air got a bit warmer. Bobbi looked over at Von Doom, still smiling as offensively as possible.

"Taser that propagates through the air? On the Doombot? I admit I was pretty shocked for a millisecond there before it hit me."

Victor Von Doom stalked towards her, the faint clank of his armor the only sound. He walked lightly for a man wearing a hundred pounds of metal; lighter than Tony in the Iron Man suit. His green cape snapped once or twice behind him. "I dislike waste, Mockingbird. Killing you out of hand would be wasteful."

She nodded. "And I thank you for your thrift but why are we doing the Snidely Whiplash routine here? We're both adults." She shook her wrists, making the chains rattle. In the bright light she could see she was in some sort of dining/meeting room. There were a few thin windows on the far wall, a large table with at least twenty seats in the center of the room and a bank of modern equipment (screens, computers) covering a big chunk of the other end. Directly across from her hung a large colorful tapestry that looked like a medieval battle scene...flanked by oil paintings of Doom. 

He hung paintings of himself. In his own home. 

Of course he did. 

Von Doom walked right up to her and studied her, rather as one might study a strange insect pinned to a card. Inside his mask, his eyes were dark and cold. His voice echoed just a little.

"I am not a fool, Mockingbird. I would no more leave you free to run about my palace unattended than I would allow Tony Stark to plug a memory card into my computer systems."

"I promise to be a good little girl."

"I am not in the habit of trusting the word of a professional spy. Or an Avenger."

"Ooooo, Cap's going to be hurt to hear you wouldn't trust him."

"Captain America might be the only exception. He has a sense of honor."

"Wow, get me first aid for that burn," she said with a grin. He stared at her in stony silence. "Com'on, Doom. Work with me here, I'm having a bad day, my head really hurts, I'm starving to death and this place is the dictionary definition of drafty. I'm not at the top of my game."

"I find your manner tedious in the extreme. Please cease trying to be amusing."

"See, now, I can't. It's right there in the name, Mockingbird. I have a reputation to uphold." Her eyes gave her cheerful tone the lie. They were nearly as cold as his. He nodded with a sliver of respect.

He stepped back and she saw that a pair of Doombots had appeared behind him. One was laying out a place setting with a covered plate on the table. The other was holding a key. It walked up and unlocked her manacles, then grabbed her upper arm in a crushing grip. It marched her wordlessly out of the room and into a very luxurious bathroom, never taking its eyes off of her as she took care of her physical needs and washed up, then marched her back to the table. It forced her into the seat in front of the plate and stood directly behind her, its hand hovering just above her shoulders.

Von Doom was sitting at the head of the table, somehow managing to drink a glass of wine through his mask.

Bobbi took the salver off the plate and smiled. "Latverian goulash. I made a version of this for the team a few weeks ago. So much easier to get decent mutton in New York than when I was learning to cook." She started to eat slowly and neatly, seeming to enjoy herself. "May I please have a glass of water? I'm sure the vintage is lovely but I don't drink alcohol when I might have to be fighting for my life." The Doombot poured her a fresh goblet of mineral water, whisking away her wine glass.

Von Doom studied her intently. "Are you not worried I might have drugged the food?"

"You might have but if you wanted me unconscious I wouldn't be awake and, despite that I really really don't like you, I do believe you hold yourself to a code of sorts. Poisoning me would be...cheap. Vulgar, even." She raised her glass to him. 

He watched her eat in silence, a vaguely perturbed air about him. As she scraped the last of the gravy up with a scrap of bread he leaned forward. "You are remarkably calm under the circumstances, Mockingbird. I was expecting more...fussing."

Bobbi sat back, touched the Doombot's hands accidently and flinched. "Oh, I'm fussed, Von Doom. I'm fussed. But what am I going to do? Beg? Demand? Cajole? I'd need leverage for any of that and I've got nothing, really. I'm alive on your sufferance. If you try to kill me, I'll fight. Until then I see no reason we can't talk." She studied the monitoring equipment along the far wall. "But you should know I got a message out. The team knows I'm alive. They'll be looking for me and the longer that takes, the tenser they're going to get. Tense Hulk is even less fun than normal Hulk."

Doom remained leaning forward. "You are a bit of an enigma, Dr. Barbara...Barton." 

She laughed. "Sorry, was that supposed to be ominous?" Her hands flew to her face and her voice became a parody of panicked for a few sentences. "Heavens to Betsy! He knows I'm married to Hawkeye! Come off it, it's open knowledge in the intelligence community now and you might be a megalomaniacal loon but you're not _stupid_."

She'd made him mad: visibly, twitchingly angry. She pushed.

"Frankly, if anyone should be scared because they know that, it's you. Hawkeye's more reckless than I am. You're holding captive the wife of a man who can put an arrow through the eye socket of that mask from so far away you wouldn't see it coming, who won't give a shit about the hell it would raise if he offed you. If you had half a brain that wasn't wrapped up in brooding on imagined slights you'd have bundled me back over the border hours ago and screamed into the radio for him to come and get me."

Doom was on his feet and the bot behind her hand grabbed her up the upper arms and was hauling her backwards violently. It slammed her into the wall hard enough she nearly vomited the food she'd just eaten. As she was gagging and breathing hard it snapped the manacles back onto her wrists and hauled the chain up shorter, so that she was standing on the tip of her toes. It hurt like hell.

"You will speak to me with respect, you debased urchin," Doom snapped, stalking towards her. "And to think I was considering offering you a position on my staff."

Bobbi opened her mouth and then paused. "For the record, I desperately want to make a dirty joke right now. It's physically painful holding back." She clamped her lips on a giggle that escaped in a little spurt.

Doom snarled in rage. "I watched you when you were a student! You were one of the bright, promising ones, you, Banner, Stark. And you all fell into this pit of ridiculous altruism--the collective delusion that you 'Avengers' can make a difference" His voice, metallic and brittle from inside his armor, dripped contempt. "You could have been talking point in history as Dr. Morse. And instead you chose to subject yourself to pointless violence, risk your life to protect sheep and fools? Spend your vitality debasing yourself for tawdry physical pleasures with a man one step up from an ape? You were on the Nobel short list in your twenties--you have been reduced down to this action movie caricature and you're proud of yourself?" He paced, his cloak swirling angrily, back and forth several feet in front of her. 

"Victor, don't insult Hawkeye." Bobbi's voice was soft and still in a face gone blank. "Just...don't."

"Or what? You are not in a position to demand anything of me, Avenger."

"Or I'll start telling you the truth and you'll really hate it."

"Oh, please. Scour me with your truth."

"It's not going to take long. Yeah I traded a potential Nobel Prize for love, friendship, loyalty, purpose, excitement, did I mention love? And really good sex. Not that you would know anything about any of that." Bobbi smiled fiercely. "Talked to Sue Richards lately?"

The very air in the room stopped as her words struck him.

Doom crossed the space between them in a single bound, snarling through his mask. Bobbi didn't move, didn't flinch. She just smiled at him as he jammed his metal mouth into her face. 

"Fuck you, Doom. I nearly died getting rid a bomb that would have turned a chunk of your precious country into radioactive waste. And you're treating me like a criminal. Fuck. You."

His metal gauntlet wrapped around her throat and hauled her up, off her feet. She dangled, choking, from his fist. Her vision started to go red, then faded into silver sparkles.

*****

Von Doom lounged in his throne-like chair in front of the bank of monitors as his call to the Avengers tower was connected trough a fearsome system of proxies and remote satellites. 

There was a pause and the main monitor, nearly life sized, lit up with a view of the briefing room at the Tower. It was still and quiet. 

From off screen came the sound of a scuffle and several arguing voices. 

"I'm not talking to him!" That was Tony, hissing with rage. "He was buying stuff from Stane from day one I was in that cave. I'm not going to be civil."

"I'm out," said Natasha in a calmer tone, but still firm.

"Bunch of cowards," said Steve Rogers and then stepped into view from the right side of the screen, dressed in his full costume and cowl, shield in hand. "Dr Von Doom. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

From behind Doom, Bobbi yelled in a hoarse voice: "He's being really really mean to me Steve!" She was out range of the camera where she was chained to the wall but she could just make out the screens if she leaned all the way forward.

The scuffle started up again and Hawkeye hurtled into view just behind Captain America. "Bobbi? Bobbi? You're okay?"

"No, but you knew that when you married me, sport," she called, her voice still rough. She coughed once. "I'm physically intact-ish. I mean, I did fight like twenty five guys, crash a plane, get tasered by a Doombot and Vickie there choked me for a couple seconds but you know, days work." 

"You choked her? Why would you do that?" Captain America said in a very calm voice, making a 'hush' motion at the sputtering Hawkeye. 

"She provoked me, Captain. She has been very...disdainful of my hospitality."

"You chained me to a wall in your castle Victor! Twice! I'm not inclined to join in on a rousing chorus of 'Latveria, My Latveria'." 

Hawkeye settled back on his heels, still searching the image in front of him, but with a tiny grin on his lips.

Doom conveyed a pained squint from behind his mask. "Is she always like this?"

"Pretty much," said Clint before Steve could speak.

"How have you not beaten her to death?"

"The sex is really good."

"Ha! Told you!" Bobbi's triumphant yell was far away but clear. 

Hawkeye's grin became a little wild. 

"If you hurt her at all, Doom, we're going to have words and by words I mean I'm going to jam an arrow so far down your eye hole it'll come out--"

Natasha appeared, snagged him around the neck and pulled him out of frame in one smooth motion, Steve following swiftly. There was yet another scuffle and Captain America re-appeared in the field of view. From off camera, Black Widow could be heard snarling "What have we told you about causing international incidents?".

Hawkeye's voice went up half an octave. "If he hurts her it's going to be a fucking intergalactic incident!"

Captain America winced and look at the camera. "It's been a tense few hours here, Dr Von Doom. We didn't know what happened to Mockingbird after the plane crash."

"Indeed. I would not have credited it but they seem a good match," Doom said dryly.

"They are. In any case, how would you like to go about releasing Mockingbird to us? We can meet you or your people at any point on the border, whenev--"

"What makes you think I would release her?"

The silence in both rooms was, conservatively, ominous. Captain America straightened up and his shield was suddenly more visible in the frame.

"Because she's an American citizen and an Avenger? Who prevented a terrorist incident on your border?" 

"What proof do I have of that? She was apprehended on my soil without crossing through a border point; she is a known spy and infiltrator. And a member of a rather thuggish group of private mercenaries who deem themselves above international law," Doom said in an even tone. "It would be within my rights to execute her right now, or consider her presence an act of war."

A _very loud_ scuffle erupted off camera, punctuated by Hawkeye yelling "Let me fucking go Thor!" followed by Iron Man telling Jarvis to "Lock the place down!"

Bobbi's voice cut through the noise, high and clear and suddenly much closer to the camera. "He's not going to execute me, he's trying to make me sweat because I won't kiss his shiny metal ass." She appeared next to Doom in the frame and tossed a set of old-fashioned manacles onto the table. "Those new plastic zip straps? Waaaaaayyyyy more secure, though I understand the aesthetic difficulties."

She smiled slightly Captain America. "That Doombot was waiting for me; he knew what was going on. He's not going to line up a firing squad on an Avenger who just stopped part of his border from turning into radioactive waste. This is about making the cool kids suffer."

Clint popped back into frame with his hair messed and a livid bruise on this face. He glared into the camera. "You are never allowed out of the bedroom again. I'm getting Stark to put in bars and a neck tether."

"Sounds like fun, sport!"

A Doombot appeared behind Mockingbird and grabbed her around the arms again but didn't drag her away as she half expected. She and Hawkeye were staring at each other intensely, lips working as though having a private conversation no one else could hear.

Steve shot Clint a wary look then turned back to Doom. "Are we going to play this game, Dr. Doom? We're not a government, we have no political power to expend for you. We're not going to give you tech or weapons for her return. But you can be sure if you try to imprison her we will turn this into the biggest embarrassment of a nightmare, diplomatically, that we can. The Hungarians have already sent out a public commendation via the United Nations; you're going to look pretty awful in comparison."

"What will that aid, if she is already dead?" Doom said in a smooth cold voice.

"It'll aid us not leveling your palace, Doom." The thing with Captain America delivering threats is that the didn't really register as threats right away. He always sounded so earnest, so sincere, so polite that it would just slip past when you first heard it, then come back around and clock you over the head.

"So much for your vaunted claims to be a 'good man', Captain," Doom said with a sneer.

"Good men are loyal to their friends, Doom. Good men stand up to bullies. Just like heroes don't let terrorists hurt innocent people, even in countries run by dictators. So, I'm a good man and Mockingbird is a hero. What do you think you are?" 

"The villain of the piece, Captain." Doom rose to his feet and gestured at Mockingbird, standing still in the grip of the Doombot, staring at Hawkeye as though trying to devour him with her eyes.

A puff of...something...struck Bobbi in the face and she went down into the cloud, down until all she could see what white and grey and then black.


	2. Wolves and Owls and Vegetation, Oh My

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mockingbird has a deadline to get out of Latveria, enemies on her tail.

Bobbi woke up with an even more heinous headache than the first two times she'd woken up lately. And also she was very very cold. She was lying on her back on what felt like a bed of rocks and staring up at evergreen bows. The sun was low off to her left, obscure by trees, as she sat up and took stock of her surroundings.

Doom's artificial, repulsive voice wafted over her. "I came to an agreement with Captain America, Mockingbird: I am releasing you into the Avenger's custody. He asked that I allow you to 'walk out under your own power'. But since he did not specify how and where I was to release you, or how far you had to walk to get there, I have decided to provide you with a little...adventure. I know you...ahem...heroes do so love adventure."

"One more time, Doom, can I invite you to go fuck yourself?" Bobbi said in a pained voice, getting unsteadily to her feet. Her batons were long gone so she basically had the clothes on her back and whatever Doom wanted to provide her with. 

"You should save your energy, Mockingbird. You must cross my borders by sunrise tomorrow morning or I will execute you as a spy. Sunrise is approximately ten hours from now. You are currently standing at the entrance to one of my private game preserves; the closest point on my border is forty kilometers away to the north. There is a small tracker in your pocket that will direct you to that location. Good luck, Avenger."

As if on cue, far off in the distance, wolves started to howl.

Bobbi looked up and spotted the drone Doom was using to speak to her. She reached into her pocket and found a small plastic disk and next to it a large European coin she'd happened to have with her when she started this whole debacle. She took the coin in her hand, weighing distance and wind and her own relative arm strength. She was the generalist on the Avenger team, the one who could sub in for nearly all the others to some extent. And she lived with Hawkeye, who could make anything into a weapon. 

The coin hit the drone neatly on the near side rotor sending it spinning into the trees and then crashing to the ground. Doom's enraged yell was cut off sharply. Bobbi--dressed in her jeans, running shoes and maybe two layers of clothing, scooped up the wreckage and peeked at the small plastic disk from her pocket. A tiny red dot blinked on the surface that stayed in the same place no matter where she turned it. 

Mockingbird took off running in that direction. 

An hour into her run, she had to slow down, coughing and gasping. Her headache was worse and she was parched. A small clearing with a stream had opened up in the pine forest: did she dare trust the water?

She'd have to; she couldn't run much further dry. Dropping to her knees, she studied the stream. It ran fast, the channel was deep and the water was clear over moss covered rocks. That probably meant it wasn't laced with poison or anything. Dipping her fingers into the surface, it was icy cold. She dripped a little on her tongue and sat back, waiting to see what might happen. 

Pulling the body of the drone out of her jacket--she'd stripped it of non-essentials on her run but for several of the rotor blades that would function as crude knives in a pinch--she pried off the main body panel and stared at the interior. She was no engineer but she hung out with Tony and Bruce in the lab for fun. _That_ was obviously the main control circuits and _That_ was a speaker and _That_ was probably the radio receiver. She levered out the last two parts of the mechanism and tucked them into her jacket pocket along with the attached battery. If she could get out of the trees, she might be able to catch a signal. She would bet on Hawkeye divorcing her and marrying Thor before she would bet against the team working hell bent to get in touch with her right now. Doom was explicit in keeping his word, they would know where she was and where she was headed.

It had been several minutes and she hadn't dropped dead so she leaned down and drank deeply from the stream. With a sigh, she sat back up.

That was the moment the alpha wolf from the pack that had been stalking her leapt from the bushes towards her throat.

Bobbi's body reacted before her mind, throwing her backwards and bringing her feet up to kick the wolf in the stomach, sending it flying into the bushes behind her. She sprang to her feet and sprinted for the bushes the wolf had flown out of--just as the rest of the pack came out of them. Mockingbird vaulted over their heads and into the trees. It was getting darker and the forest floor was a mess of leaf litter and exposed roots; she could not run from them. She would have to fight.

Well, she was in a forest...she wasn't lacking choices for weapons. 

A long thin branch at her feet look sturdy enough, she kicked it upwards and caught it. Yes, it would do. Snapping it in half over her knee, she felt like Mockingbird again, sticks in hand. Putting her back to a tree, she smiled fiercely towards the now wary alpha male stalking towards her from the clearing.

"Little guy, you don't want to do this. I've fought the Brood, giant frogs, freaking saber tooth tigers. I don't know if Doom's starving you or..." She paused, staring at the wolves. Metal gleamed along their skulls, in patches down their flanks: implants, glowing with lights. They were living, breathing wolves, not robots but...

"Thor's Dad, pups, what's the psychopath done to you?" 

There was an extra layer of intelligence in the creature's eyes. Did Doom keep them as pets? As guards? As prey? All of the above probably. 

Bobbi straightened up and postured, spreading her arms and puffing out her chest, universal predator body language for 'Don't fuck with me'. The alpha male paused, and the rest of the pack paused too. "Back off. I think you can understand me, can't you? Back off. If you make me fight, I'll have to kill some of you."

The alpha growled deep in his throat then paced to one side, eyeing her the whole while. The rest of the pack (she counted five in the fading light) stayed where they were. Bobbi dropped her hands down at her sides, wondering if they would register the sticks as weapons in that position.

When she turned her head to follow the alpha, a young rangy male on the edge of the group leapt at her. It was a transparent ploy--for a human. She'd used it as an intelligence test. 

The creature was fast--faster than a wolf should be. But Mockingbird was not an Avenger for nothing--she still got the butt end of the stick up and struck the creature under his jaw while dropping below his leap. Again, without waiting for the others to react, Mockingbird charged the group, swinging her left stick hard at the nearest wolf, striking it on the front legs. It went down with a scream that was shockingly human, taking out another of the pack with it. There was a loud thud behind her, the first wolf's leap had turned into a head on collision with the tree trunk. Bobbi leap frogged another wolf, swinging both her sticks in controlled patterns to protect her legs, reached another tree and spun.

The young male was down on the ground, his head at a weird angle. The alpha male was standing over him, nudging him in the side. The rest of the pack had moved towards them, making little whining noises.

"Damn it," Bobbi gasped. "I warned...I'm sorry..." She took off running towards the red dot on the disk in her hand.

Behind her, the wolf pack sent up a howl of pure grief.

Mockingbird cried quietly as she ran, making her headache worse. She was also sure the wolves would be after her again.

She cleared the tree line and found a gravel path next to a river headed in the right general direction so she could really open up--or would have been able to if she hadn't been weak, injured, concussed, malnourished and dehydrated (again). But that meant the pack could too and they had to be able to run faster than her. Up ahead, she could see where the river dropped into a gorge on one side, a mountain rising up on the other. The path crossed over a bridge and meandered up the sheer cliff in lazy switchbacks.

Climbing that track would add hours to her journey. 

Bobbi stared at the cliff face. It wasn't that high really. It wasn't even that sheer. She had decent shoes on; her hands were still in good shape....

She was half-way up the cliff when the mutated owls attacked her.

*****  
Bobbi hauled herself over the final lip of the cliff face and flopped onto her back. She coughed, spitting out downy feathers and owl blood. "Doom, if you can hear me, I hate you. I hate you with a fiery-yet rational-passion. I could have done without knowing that about myself."

It turned out that if you bit the large owl with the steel tipped claws that was currently trying to gouge out your eyes--because your hands were occupied with preventing you from falling off a cliff--and shook it like a terrier with a rat until it died all the rest of the flock got scared and flew away.

She squinted, feeling a track of her own blood meandering down her face from the deep scratches on her scalp and forehead. The light was brighter up here, out of the first stretch of forest. The sun set was gorgeous, all clear blues and lemons, the mountains black and dark green. "Such a beautiful country, with such a douche-bag in charge," she said. She looked back over the edge and saw dust rising from the track next to the river.

The wolf pack was after her again. 

Bobbi scrambled to her feet and that was when the little speaker in her front pocket buzzed slightly and emitted a tiny, tiny noise. A voice.

A familiar voice.

"Yeah, I think that's the right satellite feed there Bruce, narrow the bandwidth down. We've gotta be doing most of the work or the battery on the thing she's carrying will crap out."

Forgetting her pursuers for a moment, Bobbi pulled out the assembly and spoke directly into the pickup microphone. "Tony? Can you hear me?"

"Anddddddddd we're in business, hello, hello, Mockingbird. Someone get Cap and the husband."

"I don't suppose you have a video feed anywhere that you can use to guide me to some super convenient short-cut?" Bobbi asked in a hopeful voice.

"Nah. We've barely got the two-way voice. It could cut out at any moment--as you get closer to the border I have more options and now that I've got your signal I won't lose you. But we might not have continuous communications."

Captain America and Hawkeye arrived in the room, from the brief hullabaloo on the other end. It was a mark of their collective understanding of the situation that no one wasted time on personal things. Hawkeye asked once if she was okay and accepted her 'surviving' calmly. She got down to the meat of the situation instantly.

"Look, I'm going to have to get moving here in a second, I'm being chased by a pack of super-intelligent modified wolves, and I'm scared once I hit the tree line I'm going to lose you all again. Is there anything you need from me or to tell me?"

She spared a moment to consider that for any other group of people this situation would be surreal. For the Avengers it was Tuesday.

"There are no maps extant of the area you're in and no good satellite views, obviously," said Natasha. "We don't believe Doom was lying when he said you could walk out from there in the time he gave you and he swore there were no 'artifical' traps in the area."

"Yeah, vicious predatory animals and birds are totally natural," Bobbi said in a disgusted voice. "Letter of the law, as always."

"Basically, just keep going as fast as you can in right direction and we'll do what we can from here to lighten your load. But it might not be much," Captain America broke in. "Now get moving, if you're being chased."

"Ten-four, Cap. Hawkeye?"

"Yeah, little bird?"

"If I don't make it out of here, level his castle, all right?"

"With him inside it," Hawkeye promised calmly, his voice dark and deep as the ocean.

Mockingbird took off into the trees--another stand of evergreen forest--and did lose the signal for the most part. She found human-made trail that lead in the right direction and judged it was better to be sure of her path than try to lose the wolves in the trees. She wouldn't be able to, anyway; waste of effort. If-when-they found her again, she'd have to fight. She'd have to kill.

Her heart hurting, Mockingbird ran as fast as she could in the deepening gloom.

Hours later the wolves had still not made an appearance which she was idly wishing was a good sign but was more likely an indication they were setting a trap for her in some spot up the line.

The forest around her had changed, becoming oddly jungle like: creepers and deciduous trees with big waxy leaves, gnarled trunks and thick leaf mold. The path she was on was broken at uneven intervals by clearings, artificially made, each containing what looked like a different kind of exotic plant.

One had been a field of lily-like flowers that had turned to follow her as she ran past--like the eyes of a creepy painting in a horror movie. 

Another was mostly swamp and mud with gas bubbling up and popping loudly at random intervals. She'd seen a flash of light off to the side and thought it was some kind of ignition for an instant. "Oh, gods, I'm in the fire swamps. There better not be any ROUS around here."

She stopped to catch her breath in another clearing, this one relatively empty. In fact, it looked almost scoured clean, the ground mostly bare dirt with a few long thin vines tracing across it. The wind through the trees changed direction and she could smell rotting meat suddenly, the sticky, sickly sweetness of death. That would have put her on edge in any strange place but here? Lord knew what had died and what had killed it. Bobbi rubbed her face, some of the dried blood from the owl attack flaking off and falling to the ground. 

In her pocket, the speaker piped up again.

"...gnal boost. I _think_ it worked--"

"It worked Tony. Hey how much time do I have? I'm not up on judging my progress by the stars, I admit."

It was Hawkeye who answered.

"You've got about six hours left and less than half-way to go."

"That's better than I expected," she said, picking her way carefully across the open space, her head on a swivel.

To her right, what she'd thought was a bush unfurled itself and spread its petals towards her. The scent of decay was suddenly so strong it made her gag and stumble. The vines crossing her path trembled...and rose up like tentacles, swaying and searching blindly.

Bobbi shrieked, her mind putting the clues together along with the now visible shape of the monstrous plant. Pitcher plant, central body filled with digestive liquid--a meat eater, carnivorous and apparently at this size actively predatory. 

"Bobbi, what's going on?" Hawkeye called from her pocket.

She didn't have time to answer, dodging and jinking around the vines now questing for her. They were probably coming to motion but she couldn't stand still either--they'd just physically find her by accident with enough trial.

Bobbi spun in place, feeling one of the tendrils whip past her face close enough to touch. She was almost out of the clearing--

The thick spike on the end of the longest creeper went right through Bobbi's forearm, so fast and clean that for a long breathless moment she didn't even feel any pain. Then the plant fibres twitched and started to retract, jerking her forward towards the evil-smelling bell of the huge pitcher plant. She jumped forward, ignoring the piercing agony, making just enough slack that she could slam one of the rotar blades from her pocket onto the thinnest part of the vine. Dropping to her knees, Bobbi grabbed a rock and hammered the blade deep into the quivering rubbery mass. It resisted, the ripple of what looked like pain running up to the bulbous body of the plant. She hammered down again, dodging the whip end of one of the other vines, thankfully not quite long enough to wrap around her body. The vine split, gushing sharp acidic smelling liquid; some of it splashed her leg through a rip in the jeans. The pain was just another note in the symphony.

Something big moved behind her and she threw herself to the side instinctively. The alpha wolf landed hard where she had been, whipping around with a snarl. They were almost nose to nose and there was no way she would be able to dodge him. Bobbi bared her teeth, her fingers reaching for the radio array. She'd hurl it into the bushes rather than make the Avengers listen to her die.

One of the undamaged vines uncoiled and slammed down onto the alpha's back. The thorn similar to the one through her arm speared through the alpha's shoulder in a spray of blood that spattered her face. The wolf howled in pain and fear, then fell sideways as the plant pulled hard and started dragging him towards its 'mouth'. Bobbi scrabbled to her feet and turned to run...

She got two steps before she spun on her heel and went back, punching her last blade into the vine dragging the wolf. The vine contracted and split sharply -- she must have hit it at the perfect angle. She reached down and grabbed the wolf from behind, hauling the huge beast up onto his feet, supporting his injured foreleg.

The cut end of the vine that had been reeling her in suddenly whipped up in front of her, spewing its liquid into her face. Before she could turn away, a goodly amount of it splattered into her eyes. Instantly blind, Bobbi screamed, her face burning.

But she kept her grip on the big wolf and she kept staggering forward till she smacked into a tree with her shoulder. She reached down and felt across the wolf's fur until she found the end of the spike and drew it out smoothly, pitching it behind her. Then she did the same for her own arm. Bobbi fell forward, tears streaming down her face and turned her head towards the sound of the big animal's labored breathing.

"If you're gonna rip my throat out, just do it," she gasped. From her jacket pocket, she could hear Hawkeye's tiny voice screaming at her to tell him what was going on. She reached up to draw it out...

Big sharp teeth took her hand and pulled her to her feet, barely dimpling her skin. She shivered and reached down with her free hand, fingers sliding over warm rough fur and patches of metal. The teeth holding her pinched a little and then released and she heard the big animal limp away, bushes rattling. 

"Bobbi, what the hell is happening down there? Tony found a weather satellite that can see the area, I was trying to tell you, we can get infra red, there's some weird heat signature in the middle of that clearing, really faint and are those, is that the wolf pack?"

Mockingbird took a deep breath and got the whole thing out in one go.

"Doom has genetically engineered a human sized carnivorous pitcher plant. With spiked tentacles. And acid sap. And it stabbed me through the forearm and tried to eat me. Then it tried to eat the alpha wolf and I saved it. Save the wolf; fuck that plant. Then I got acid sap in my eyes and now I'm blind and bleeding from my arm really badly."

The pause on the other end was long enough she was worried the equipment had broken. 

"Oh, you're fucking kidding me," Hawkeye said in a wondering tone. 

"Yeah, I know, seriously? I mean, seriously?"

"Where'd the alpha go?"

"Limped away. I'm going to try to see if I can feel my way back to that game trail. Can you guys see enough to direct me a little?" Bobbi wrapped her left forearm in a strip torn from the tattered bottom of her shirt. She toddled a couple of uncertain steps, hands out like a zombie.

Tony's voice came over the comm now. "That's back towards the evil vegetation. Turn to your right and walk as straight as you can."

Bobbi did a heel turn and shuffled forward, trying to feel for obstacles with one foot. She tripped on an exposed root, banging her injured arm on a tree hard enough to make her cry out. She dropped to one knee, crying in earnest now, making her eyes hurt worse. "This isn't going to work, I can't...there's no way I can make it through this forest without my eyes..." She sobbed, pain and despair ripping chunks out of what was left of her will. 

A big furry body pressed up against her on either side, warm and alive. She froze, waiting for the teeth on her neck, wolves killed by strangulation, didn't they?

A thick deep panting and the smell of blood told her the alpha was behind her. She straightened up. "The wolves are back," she said calmly into the comm, then spoke to the wolves. "Well, just do it then. I don't blame you." 

A soft whine sounded, then a nose was pressed into her back. She took a step forward and the two wolves to each side stepped with her. Another prod, another step. 

"Bobbi, what's happening?" 

"Am I walking in the right direction?"

"Yeah...how?"

"The wolves...are helping me."

"When this is all over, I think we need to talk to the UN about Latveria doing illegal genetic research on wolves. And making giant killer plants."

"When this is all over, I'm going to sit on the border with raw steak until the pack comes to me and then take them away from this lunatic place."

"I'll buy land for them to romp around in if they keep helping you," Tony's faint voice called. Behind her, the alpha male snorted, a remarkably human noise. Bobbi spoke over her shoulder. 

"We're both serious. As soon as I can see again, I'm coming back for you. We'll find you all somewhere safe to live."

It was very slow going but the wolves stayed with her the whole way. They kept her on the trail and at least twice she thought the protected her from some danger that approached unseen. Mostly, she concentrated on not rubbing her eyes and walking as fast as she could.   
The connection to the Avengers remained open and she and Clint and Tony talked of small things, movies and tv shows and stupid shit the media was saying about them. New products Tony and Pepper were thinking about bringing to market through Stark industries. Modifications to their weapons, the quinjet, the equipment they all carried. The normal world of being a superhero.

Thor, Bruce and Natasha made appearances. But not Sam Wilson, the Falcon, nor Steve. Knowing that Doom was likely to be listening in, she didn't ask where they were. And in fact, she thought that she wasn't even talking to the Tower in New York anymore. The quality of the transmission had changed. 

The rest of the Avengers were in Europe, now.

They were near by. Hawkeye was close.

Warmed and comforted by the thought, Mockingbird and her canine escort walked through the strange dark forest as the night wore on, steady and secure.

When she pried her eyes open hours later, everything looked lighter. Dawn must be coming. The wolves had stopped walking and the alpha had taken her hand in his mouth again, pulling her gently over firm, even ground that felt like packed dirt.

"Hawkeye?" They'd wound down the conversation as the night wore on, just the occasional check in and 'Hey, little bird? I love you' at random moments. "Am I close to the border?"

"What? Yeah. Yeah, you're actually in view of the surveillance system Hungary keeps at the border. Stark! Nat! Wake up!"

In the back ground, she heard Natasha and Tony mumbling and rousing. 

The wolf holding her hand bit down a little harder and then released his grip. As he turned--his gait labored from the still bleeding injury--she reached out and touched his head. 

"Thank you. I'm sorry beyond words for your pack mate. I also have a pack and if anything happened to one of them I would not be able to forgive as quickly as you did. I'm serious about getting out out of here. Come back to this place as often as you can. If we can free you, we will."

A soft warm tongue lapped at her fingers and then the wolves were gone, silent as the night slipping away from her.

Natasha spoke for the first time in hours. "Bobbi, you have very little time left. Less than eight minutes. We can see a stretch of packed earth between you and the border and it's definitely a mine field."

"If I lived next to Doom it would be laser equipped sharks and roving bands of killer robots."

Tony laughed. "I'll suggest it to them."

Natasha came back. "Bobbi, you're going to have to run the field. We have no other way of getting you through."

Mockingbird laughed, her voice light and high and bright. "I know, Nat. I know. We got this far, we can do this." Bobbi shook herself like a dog shedding water. This was it, life or death hanging on the next few minutes.

"Tony, Nat, give Hawkeye the controls. Sport?"

"Yeah, little bird?"

"You be my eyes. You know how long my stride is, how far I can jump, where I can turn. You know me better than I know myself. Guide me."

She heard him go full sniper on the other end. "Tony, can you split this screen? I need overhead, her eye level and a side view." As they sorted that out, Natasha said softly in the background "Time's up in just under two minutes."

Bobbi took a deep breath, feeling the cold air on her skin, the blood dripping down her arm, the chemical burn of the sap across her face. She could see a little now, mostly light and dark. The no-go zone from where she was standing to the very obvious border was an expanse of dark bare ground. The horizon was a bright strip against a black sky, pulsating a little to her damaged eyes.

"One minute, thirty five seconds," Natasha's voice said softly.

"Mock, you need to hit a sprint in ten strides, no more no less. Can you see enough to go straight ahead for five steps--start with your left leg, then the next five a half step right, okay?"

"Okay, done."

"On ten, forward flip body length and a half, no hands, try to land on your right foot. Run straight from there and we'll adjust on the fly, there's something weird about the last strip and we don't know what it is but there's no time to figure it out. Ready?"

"Ready."

"Go, little bird."

She charged forward, holding a tree on the border as her set point.

1   
2  
3  
4  
5

Push off right

6  
7  
8  
9  
10 

She leapt, her body knowing without her needing to tell it, stuck the landing on her right foot, sprinted forward again.

"Proximity mines," Tony screamed from the little speaker in her pocket. "They _all_ just activated, fifteen seconds max."

Clint's voice was preternaturally calm, focused. "You have sixty meters to go. You can make this. Five straight, 1/2 right, 12 straight, hopscotch eighteen more, body length roll left then bloody run, Mock."

She was counting as he spoke, knowing what he meant no matter how cryptic it sounded. Fifth step, 1/2 stride to the right, 12 straight ahead...then hop from one foot to the next at her full stride, passing over little mounds of disturbed dirt that were heating up to explode and kill her. She landed in a little divot and dove to her left, shoulder rolled and came up on her feet. Looking into the sun, she pushed off like an Olympic sprinter and sprinted forward, at the very limits of her strength, body and mind both. There was no count down anymore from Natasha, no yelling from Tony, and now that he could no longer direct her, Clint was quiet. She loved her team-mates for that, professionals to the end.

A high whine was rising from the ground all about her. The mines were about to explode.

In the distance, the alpha's deep voice rose in wolfsong, mourning and triumphant at the same time.

Mockingbird found something in her belly, burned through the final molecule of her blood sugar, reached deep into that last reserve called "being an Avenger" -- the diamond hard will to keep going because you must, because there was no one else. Refuse to fall, refuse to fail, refuse to die.

Refuse to quit.

Mockingbird hurled herself into the air one last time and flew.

Mid flight, two long heavily muscled arms snatched her out of the air, pulling her against a broad chest like a stone wall. The man holding her turned and pinned her to the ground, protecting her under his torso as the land mines on the other side of the border exploded. Rocks and debris spanged violently off her legs, his back...his shield.

"Hi, Steve," Bobbi gasped into his ear knowing his hyper-senses would pick it up, gulping for breath, laughing hysterically with relief. Even in the air, the explosion would probably have killed her without him.

The noise faded into a ringing in her ears and she heard Clint's anguished cry from her pocket: "Bobbi! Steve! _Answer me!_ "

Captain America straightened up, the newly risen sun washing him in golden light that made his pale, expressive face look almost angelic. Or so she assumed, she still couldn't see--but he look angelic in a lot different lighting, Steve was pretty flipping gorgeous. She lusted after him in an almost idle, knee-jerk reaction way, no heat to it. Being so close and so physically intimate (in the form of kicking the crap out of each other) with a guy that good looking a woman got ideas. Abstract ideas; he was basically her brother, like Tony and Thor and Bruce.

Clint though...Clint could make her start drooling and taking off her clothes by just reaching for his coffee cup in the morning. 

She patted her pocket. "Oh captain my captain and I are fine, sport."

There was a pause and then Clint's voice took on a vicious, determined air. " _YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO ANOTHER CONFERENCE AGAIN, UNDERSTAND?_ "

Steve gave a soft, rueful laugh. "If I could, I'd restrict you all to your quarters when we're not working. I'm getting tired of almost losing family."

That got a collective laugh from the rest of the team.

"I'm bringing our Birdie home, Hawkeye. Have the welcoming committee ready." Without straining or seeming to notice her 180 pounds of solid muscle, Captain America hauled Bobbi into his arms. "Falcon's got the quinjet here, we're ten minutes max from Stark-Italia. You can relax now, Mockingbird."

"I relaxed the instant you grabbed me, Cap." She settled her head against his chest, shaking now from the flood of fight or flight chemicals being released into her blood stream. She passed out fairly gently, feeling utterly safe.

She woke up to the sound of Clint and Bruce arguing, quietly but with passion. Their voices were muffled, as though they came from the other side of a wall.

"...could be in her bloodstream, could be nano-mites like Tony thinks. It's only for a day, Clint, calm the hell down."

"Stop telling me to calm down Bruce. She's nearly died like fifty times in ten hours, she fought wolves! And man-eating plants! She thought she was blind! I'm not going to stare longingly at her through a containment suit!"

"Clint what are you...put your pants back on you idiot!" Bruce yelled. A door opened with a hiss noise and Bobbi felt a pressure wave of air on her face. Negative pressure, towards her.

"Hey, little bird," Clint said close by, his voice no longer muffled. Outside she could hear Bruce making exasperated sounds.

"Clint, did you just strip down to your underwear and come into a decon chamber to be with me?"

"Yup, shift over, I'm cold."

Bobbi shifted on the warm, soft surface she was lying on--of course Tony's decon chambers would have nice beds in them. The foam mattress dipped and the blanket she was covered with was lifted and replaced as Clint's warm mostly naked body cozied up next to her. "If you got something, I got something," he muttered into her ear.

"That was very naughty of you, Clinton. Very irresponsible." She turned her head and found his mouth by guess and practice and kissed him deeply. "Thanks, sport."

"They don't even think there's anything in your blood, it's just precautions and junk." His hands were on her hips as though he could not help himself, his body settled into the curve of hers instantly. 

She breathed out, taking stock of her physical and mental state.

Pretty solid, actually. Heated, even.

"Bruce?" Bobbi called.

"Yeah, woman-who-married-a-lunatic?" Banner sounded half way between pissed off and amused.

"There's a window on this room right?"

"Of course."

"Could you cover it with something?"

"Why would I...oh, god, yes, yes I can cover it, I'll do that right now." Bruce made fussing noises, having gotten the point as to why she wanted privacy for the moment. "I'm turning the microphones off right now, knock on the window when...Well, actually, just call for Jarvis, I'm sure...I'm shutting up now." 

Bruce's voice cut out abruptly. 

"I love working with smart people," Bobbi muttered to Hawkeye, who laughed in her ear.

"So, is there something about nearly dying that makes you horny, little bird?"

"Oh, no more than usual sport. I have an experiment to complete."

"Do you now?"

"Yeah, I still can't see and they say that makes your other senses more acute."

"Hmmm?" Hawkeye's hands were moving, one of them trailing up to tease at a nipple and the other moving down to nest cozily in a warm place.

"Let's start with touch and we'll move on to taste in a bit, shall we?"

Hawkeye's teeth touched the back of her neck, making her whole body shiver.

"For science then, little bird. For science."


End file.
